Australia rejects East Timor as guest workers scheme
Updated
East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao was in Canberra today hoping to win support for a proposal to allow East Timorese workers to be included in Australia's seasonal worker's program. The answer from Australia was not now. But Xanana Gusmao didn't come away empty-handed.
Presenter: Michael Cavanagh
Speaker: Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd; East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.
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CAVANAGH: The official part of the Australian visit began out the front of parliament house in the traditional way for any touring prime minister.
Then it was down to business with the two prime ministers meeting for just under two hours.
In the lead up much of the focus had been on the possibility of East Timor being a part of the guest worker scheme, Australia announcing earlier this month that two half thousand workers from Kiribati, Vanuatu, Tonga and Papua New Guinea would be eligible for seven month visas enabling them to work in Australia's horticultural industry.
The two men emerged from the talks with a number of training programs to be made available to the East Timorese along with just under five million U.S dollars in Australian funding for the building of a defence training centre in Metinaro East Timor.
But as for the guest worker scheme Mr Rudd says there are things that still need to be considered..
RUDD: Specifically what we have said in the joint education training employment initiative that one of the matters to report back on is this and that is by year's end and possibly earlier in terms of feasability but let's take it from the ground up there is still some work to be done on this.
CAVANAGH: Prime Minister Gusmao accepted the knock back.
GUSMAO: We continue to talk about this to discuss and of course not tomorrow that we will send and ah it will time we agreed with the Australian government with the prime minister that we will discuss how we can participate Australian Government can give us these opportunities.
CAVANAGH: The joint education training employment initiative announced by Mr Rudd was part of the package which will also see Australia funding a near doubling from 12 to 20 university scholarships for East Timorese doing both undergraduate or post graduate courses next year at Australian universities.
Other programs will include further education for those serving the community in East Timor.
RUDD: In particular what we are looking at is the needs in the Timor Leste public sector and its public service for an intensified training program, grassroots, middle level and senior level in order to make sure that East Timor is properly equipped to address its challenges for development.
CAVANAGH: While Australia is willing to provide training in the lead up to the meeting and speculation over involvement in the guest worker scheme it became clear that one of the reasons for Mr Rudd's hestitation over East Timor's inclusion was the revenues expected as part of Dili's share in revenue from energy sales.
A subject that was not far from Prime Minister Gusmao during his visit with questions over how his country intended to handle the posibillity that Woodside Petroleum may rule out processing gas from Greater Sunrise in East Timor and instead either piping it to Darwin or having a floating liquefied gas plant in the Timor Sea.
GUSMAO: We'll look to the technical and commercial viabilities. After that we will accept any decision.
CAVANAGH: Prime Minister Gusmao also inspected the yet to be completed East Timor embassy in Canberra.
